Social+Studies

Consider the Draft Literacy Learning Progressions – By the End of Year 6: // As they read, students build on their expertise and demonstrate that they can locate information in a variety of texts, using a repertoire of strategies that includes skimming and scanning, identifying key words, topic sentences, and key questions, and using subheadings // A literacy strategy to support this is called **‘Text Overview’** (adapted from __Top Tools for Literacy and Learning__ by David Whitehead, Pearson Education, 2001)
 * Developing Literacy Across the Curriculum **

This tool works as a visual representation of a text (oral, visual or written). It breaks the content into parts. It could be given to students before a text is read to help them with structure and content.

Alternatively, you could provide students with an incomplete overview, and give them with some of the key subtopic words and plenty of white space for the supporting details. You could also provide them with some of the words to fill the spaces if necessary.

Below is an example of a completed text overview based on an article about waste:

Note the shading of the heading ‘Waste’ and the double borders for the sub-headings. (ie, landfill issues) Under the sub-headings are the paragraphs which are in the thin borders (ie, bacteria, methane etc) and the information within the paragraphs is in the dotted borders (ie, global warming, harmful to plants, animals and people etc).